What comes to your mind when you hear the word contextualisation? You may think about tailoring the information to suit specific needs which indicates flexibility.
From a Vocational Education and Training (VET) perspective, contextualisation relates to making the learning and assessment applicable to the learner’s context of work. What then defines the context of work?
Context of work includes:
– the type of work and the way it is performed
– the type of industry or enterprise for example retail, hospitality or aged care.
The objective of quality training and assessment is to equip the learner with the skills they need to competently perform a specific job role in a particular industry. Through contextualisation of training and assessment resources, we are able to make the learning more relevant. It is important, however, to be careful about the amount of contextualisation – be sure not to make it too specific. Why? We might compromise the transferability of skills, meaning the learner is not able to competently perform in a different work context. It is expected that when a learner does move into a different work context, they should still have the concepts, knowledge and core skills required for the new context where appropriate. One simple example is Work, Health and Safety (WHS).
Unit(s) of competency or even a qualification can be subject to contexualisation. The rules around contextualisation for a unit of competency are that contextualisation must not:
– diminish the breadth of application of the competency to reduce its portability
– narrow down the competency outcomes and limit its use
– remove the content of any element and performance criteria related to the unit involved
What are your thoughts about contextualisation?
I agree with Keryn – “Contextualisation ensures relevance of training to a specific job but learning must also be broad enough that the outcomes are transferrable for future roles.”
Contextualisation is important for any learning, to be able to make the learning relevant, useful and interesting to the students. Agreed, there needs to be a demonstration of how the skills can be transferrable to varying contexts and industries.
Contextualisation ensures relevance of training to a specific job but learning must also be broad enough that the outcomes are transferrable for future roles.
Contextualisation is very important as it means that students are learning what is relevant to them and their current job role but ensures that they have skills that are transferrable to other workplaces.
Contextualisation is an important as many different certain trades work in different aspects of the trade and if there is no flexibility students may not be able to apply what they learn in the classroom into their respective workplaces. It may result in vital information being omitted and making work life difficult.
I agree that the skills learned must be transferable so that they can be used in multiple workplaces. Employees do not stay in the same job the way they did in the past and employers want to know how new employees can benefit their organisation.
Contextualisation provides relevant information to the learner and helps to maintain engagement.
Contextualization is bringing the relevant skills and knowledge to learners that are useable in their current or future employment, while teaching in a broad enough manner to be relevant to a variety of employment situations.
Contextualization – to bring relevant skills and knowledge to a student that are useable in their current or future employment. Whilst teaching these competencies in a broad enough manner to be relevant to a variety of employment situations.
Contextualization adds relevancy to a learner’s individual education experience. It’s important to be able to adapt and change learning materials to best suit the learners, especially those with a wide range of backgrounds and interests. By ensuring the materials are relatable to the learner, they’ll be able to add meaning based on their own experiences, be more engaged, and more likely to enable their success in learning, understanding and applying the concepts.
Contextualization ensures that the learners are learning what they need and also that there is a way to make what they’re learning relatable to them. Assists with making learners more engaged in the learning and providing a an ability to relate with the materials being delivered.
Contextualisation makes sure that what is being taught is relevant to the learner. This will help them get a better understanding of what is being taught. It helps the learner feel more engaged as well.
Contextualisation works well using simulated organisations. Scenarios allow the learner to understand the content in relation to their own job role, without diminishing the portability of the content.
Contextualization is a pivotal element to any learning environment as it provides the learner with relevance and applicability of the subject matter. Context is particularly important in adult learning as it can help to engage and stimulate learners. Providing real world context also allows learners to fully comprehend the usefulness and practicality of the information or skills being taught.
Contextualisation adds relevance and meaning in training. It allows training and assessment to be changed and tailored to the work role or conditions, making it more meaningful to the participant.I think this is especially relevant to adult learners improving their skills for their job roles or professional development in a specific area.
Contextualization provides relevance to the learning environment by learners being able to construct meaning and understanding based on their own experience. This especially benefits adult learners keeping them engaged by providing a broader context where the material is not one dimensional and ideally improving performance.
Contextualisation adds relevence. By making the learning relevent to the environment in which the learned tasks will be performed means that the overall competence of the individual performance of the task will be improved. It will also make it easier to add the ‘why’ to the training. Learning tasks with an understanding of why things are done a certain way in a particular environment is superior to learning tasks in a parrot fashion. It is contextualisation that allows for this.
Contextualization is an important strategy used to make learning relevant and meaningful for the specific learners you are teaching. It enables them to be able to take on the information and make meaningful and practical sense of the information being passed on. Contextualization enables you to be able to change learning materials to be more fluid and appropriate to your learners which can be especially useful for mature learners that have a variety of backgrounds and interests.
Contextualisation is an important step in ensuring learning is relevant to the learning cohort you are delivering training to. This is even more relevant in adult learners, who may be disengaged from lessons that are not contextualised to their own individual circumstances. Although it is important to find the right balance, as many courses and units can be contextualised over many different industries.
Contextualisation is used to give meaning and relevance to a learner. It can also make the learning experience more engaging and dynamic which is very important in an adult learning/workplace learning environment. When the learner can put the information they are learning into context, it will give them a better understanding and appreciation of the content.
Contextualisation ensures the information being taught is relevant to the needs of the learner. The ability to contextualise the subject matter leads to learners developing the relevant skills and knowledge they need for their area of expertise. It also increases motivation and understanding as the learners are able to see the information in the context of the work they’re performing.
Adult learning must be made real and meaningful. If it’s useful and can actually help the learner with their job because it’s contextualised, the learner can see that’s it is worth the effort, you find yourself with engaged learners.
Contextualisation is what makes the learning relevant. For adult learners especially, making the learning and assessment applicable to the learner’s context of work is what will keep them engaged and motivated.
Particularly for adult learners, contextualisation of learning ensures that the subject is pertinent. In so doing, the learner should be stimulated by and enjoy the learning process. Moreover, this may encourage the learner to continue further on their learning journey.
However, there must be a certain amount of caution applied to ensure the amount of contextualisation does not restrict the learning, or restrict its transferability.
I touched on this in my last assessment task. It is important that what we teach is transferable for the learner. The learner needs to be supported to use the skills or knowledge in different contexts. Contextualisation is good to build understanding but needs to be done carefully.
Contextualisation makes the learning relevant and practically applicable to the work environment of the learner. By making it more relevant the learner will be more engaged in the learning and will be better able to apply what they have learned in theory into the real-world environment of their current workplace and future workplaces.
Contextualisation is providing training and assessment in a way that learners are able to construct meaning based on their own experience. When training and assessment is modified so that it relates to the actual context of work, without it being too specific, learners are more engaged and more likely to succeed.
Contextualisation is an effective teaching tool as it provides practical examples of situations that the learner will encounter; learners can gain confidence in their new skills in a real-world setting. Contextualisation in regards to training allows the learner to apply broad ideas and methods to more specific situations. It is a foundation on which the leaner can build their skills, then tailor and apply them to different scenarios as needed. For example, customer service skills learned in the context of retail can be applied to a business setting should the leaner move into a different industry. The main goal of contextualisation should be to provide practical skills that are specific to the learner’s current industry, yet not so restrictive that they cannot be applied in a more general sense.
Contextualisation allows people to visualise the information or skill that have been taught operating in the real world, by doing this we can ensure a broader understanding of the theory. By applying a broad context the learner can apply the skill in a number of situations, translating the base of the theory to be workable in an alternate scenario. Without contextualising information it becomes one dimensional to that specific instance and prevents the learner from being able to utilise the teaching to its fullest.
One of the most effective ways to ground theoretical learning, and make learning more relevant, is to put the information into a practical context. Individuals are able to apply their knowledge directly to their work and their industry, and fully understand how this new knowledge or skill can be applied. It is important to keep contextualization relatively broad, however, to make sure that skills and knowledge can be transferred to new roles and other industries. This is key to both professional and personal development…the ability to learn new skills, apply them, and then move forward confidently into new situations.
Contextualisation is important in ensuring course material holds meaning and is relevant to each learner and their qualification. Skills and knowledge taught can often be applied to a variety of work environments but it’s contextualisation that will assist a learner in understanding how this knowledge can be directly applied to their own field of work.
Contextualisation of learning means incorporating peoples prior experiences into the relevant learning. This helps make the learning more concrete and by using previous experience give meaning to the new information. Incorporating the industry they work in to training can help the information be more engaging. However if you give the learner too much prior information it can also impact learning in a negative way. Giving the answer or provided too much information doesn’t help the learner to take on the new knowledge.
I feel it is essential for learning to be relevant as this is how participants become engaged and inspired to fully participate. Providing contextualisation allows learners to make connections with personal experience and apply knowledge in practical tasks. I agree that this process must find a balance where we recognise specific skills relevant to the learner but maintain broader knowledge that allows participants to apply the learning in new environments, as they grow in a particular role. Carefully developed contextualisation will build upon the most relevant skills required by a learner, whilst also preparing them to apply the knowledge in new roles and demonstrate innovation.
Contextualisation is what makes learning relevant, applicable and a great way to assist learners by having the information presented in a way that they feel has meaning based in their own experiences. I can understand the requirement not to be too specific but in some instances I can also see where the learning is required to be fairly narrow to the industry. In emergency services it is important that the learning is specific. The transferability of skills is more complex to cover, as the requirements of the job role require specific training.
Contextualisation is putting language items into a meaningful and real context rather than being treated as isolated items of language for language manipulation practice only. Contextualising language tries to give real communicative value to the language that learners meet. Great to find Evolvetraining.ac.nz which has same kind of wonderful tips, if possible then visit.
From what I have learnt in this course, from previous courses and my own experiences, contextualisation is so important as it supports making the skills and knowledge learnt meaningful and relevant to the learner. However, we do live in a world where people move jobs quite readily and often change the industry in which they are working. So there has to be a balance in contextualising the information/skills learnt and making them transferrable to other work situatuions
While gaining qualifications with a broad scope of application is desirable to ensure adaptability; it is equally as important to provide training that is tailored to the individual to suit their specific needs. Contextualisation assists in providing this by offering a more custom-made approach. This in turn promotes a better understanding of content, a desire to learn & a positive drive to utilise newly learnt skills, whilst still allowing for the transference of knowledge into other arenas.
Contextualisation ensures that the learner experiences relevant and suitable information that relates to their specific area, industry, role or work environment. This relevance makes the learning more engaging, and therefore, allows for a better understanding and increased interest in the learning, as it relates to them.
Contextualisation enhances learning and it allows the trainer to provide adequate and appropriate training to the learner. Contextualisation in all educational aspects is important as it allows people to relate the concept/idea to something relatable to the individual; therefore, allows better understanding, meaning, perspective and importance.
Contextualisation is an important part of industry and individual learning. It provides students the ability to comprehend the knowledge of their course by making it relevant to them, without it being too specific. If students are able to see a direct link between the skills they are learning and the work they are doing, it allows them to become more involved with the material. Contextualisation should aid them in understanding, but should not limit their ability to transfer the knowledge to a different work environment.
Danae, this comment is spot-on. Contextualisation is often ignored, which is a shame because it enhances the learning. We know from Knowles’ Adult Learning Principles that adults are most receptive to learning when it has meaning for them. They wish to see how the learning applies to them and are much less likely to retain knowledge or work at developing skills whey they don’t see the relevance.
Contextualisation is an essential element of adult learning. As previously mentioned, if people know how newly acquired information can benefit them, they are more likely to retain it. It’s also true that contextualisation must be done in a manner that doesn’t limit the understanding of the underlying rationales. The principles being taught should be clear because they don’t change; contextualisation simply tailors the training delivery and relevance to fit the audience. If the core skills are ingrained correctly and the learner has a deep understanding of it, they will be equipped to apply it in a different work environment.
With contextualisation, the training material becomes much more relevant and meaningful to the learner. If the learner sees how the training directly aides them in their role, I feel they are much more engaged in the material and would achieve a deeper learning experience.
Contextualisation in the adult learning environment is so important as learners want to be able to directly see how they can put what they are learning into action.
How would you use information from the candidate and/or workplace to identify contextualisation needs?
I think that contextualisation is important and makes the learning relevant to the audience.
If an educator is able to contextualise the learning material, learners are able relate learning material to their prior knowledge.
I believe that contextualisation is an important form of training. It allows the trainer to provide adequate and appropriate training to the learner.
Alot of training materials are kept broad so they can apply to multiple fields. Fortunately my field training is pretty specific but using contextualisation we are able to further engage with the individual to help them get the best learning experience they can. Having them understand and be able to use skills that would not limit them.
I see contextualisation as integral to engagement for adult learners, and is well aligned to the principals of adult learning. In my experience, if adult learners are able to see a clear correlation between the subject matter and how this translates to their role in practical terms, they are more likely to engage with the learning. This is especially the case in units that cover subject matter that is fairly non-specific, such as OH&S or cyber security.
I see contextualisation as integral to engagement for adult learners, and is well aligned to the principals of adult learning. In my experience, if adult learners are able to see a clear correlation between the subject matter and how this translates to their role in practical terms, they are more likely to engage with the learning. This is especially the case in units that cover subject matter that is fairly non-specific, such as OH&S or cyber security.
Contextualisation is part of what makes VET courses valuable in real terms, to industry and learners, because it ensures that the competency and/or qualification is truly useful and relevant to the specific work that must be done, while allowing mobility of qualified workers between different conditions. The limitations on contextualisation are also important because this means that that competency is not limited to a narrow set or working conditions (for example, a learner studying WH&S units in a community services qualification may not routinely use safety goggles or other specific PPE in their own workplace, but must still be aware of the potential for those precautions to be required in other workplaces).
If an educator can contextualise new information as it’s presented to a learner, the learner will be able to relate the material to their existing experiences and hopefully this will help in the development of new knowledge.
Starting with contextualisation with your learner so it is relevant and interesting is definitely the way to go before moving on to the transferability of that knowledge to broaden their skills and ability to work in different areas.
I also associate contextualisation with foundation skills embedded in VET qualifications. This was particularly critical in prevocational programs for people who may have had barriers to education and needed LLN support. Contextualising the LLN to the particular vocational area made these skills more practical and relevant.
Contextualisation makes it easier for the learner to understand by being able to apply the knowledge to their situation. As someone who teaches organisational training only, our training is already very specific to our organisation, however we can still contextualise it to a degree. For example, when teaching a groups about an IT system there will be users from different areas of the organisation using the same system for slightly different purposes or in slightly different ways. By providing examples that are tailored to that group the training is not only more relevant to the group but can also be more engaging because the group can see and understand the value in the training or system straight away.
“Contextualisation relates to making the learning and assessments applicable to the learners work environment”. This for example, takes a business degree or certificate and teaches the learner how to manage a specific business or perform a specific task instead of being general. It means teaching a nurse how to manage patients and triage priority or teaching a bus driver how to drive a bus and follow a bus route or teaching a concreter to pour driveways, formalize quotes and manage staff. Instead of giving a student the tools to ‘be’ a manager, it is teaching a student ‘how’ to be the manager in the exact area they will be expected to perform in.
When thinking of contextualisation, I suppose I imagine that is involves skillfully adjusting content to be most relevant it possibly can be to its learners, but without tampering with the core skills of the course. Although tempting to alter extensively at times, it is incredibly important not to sabotage our students’ resulting quals and compromise their competence.
Contextualisation is particularly important in the adult learning environment, providing the reasons why something is being taught and how this knowledge or skill directly relates to the workplace or the specific work role. If learners understand why they need to learn a specific skill and how they will use this skill in their role, it will increase their understanding and motivation and willingness to learn.
Contextualising aligns with adult learning principles where the relevance of what is being taught takes on greater meaning leading to deeper learning and appreciation of the content. It certainly enriches VET course work.
Thanks for your input Hiromi. Knowledge comes through experience and many trainers and assessors come with a wealth of experience which could also be from varying industries.
You will have some valuable learning by the end of this unit which will assist you but also remember that you have us at ITTA to support you on your journey.
It seems to me that the area of contextualisation is quite a difficult one for the VET trainer/assessor as it requires an understanding of differences in each client’s workplace environment and role, and I’m sure these can be tremendously varied .
Sandy’s example above is a good case in point – she is developing resources for the Utilities sector – the course is identical ,however she has 3 sets of courses and assessments – one for telcos, one for water, and one for the electricity utilities. How does one gain the knowledge of such different sectors in order to create relevant and up-to -date material in the limited time available?
The other difficulty I perceive is the balancing act required between making the resources relevant to the workplace context of the client but preserving the integrity of the unit and maintaining the transferability of skills. I hope by the end of this unit I may have some answers to these questions!
Contextualisation means ensuring information presented is relevant and has meaning. It provides a link between the concept and the reason behind learning it so that the information can be understood in a way that is engaging and has purpose.
You are right Jason. Contextualisation in the VET context is a specific term that relates to modifying the learning and the assessment so that it relates directly to the work environment and work role of the learner. We know that people learn best when the learning has meaning for them (relevance) and this is one reason we contextualise. The other is that in VET we are preparing individuals for a work role, so the more we can make the learning pathway and assessment tasks mirror the actual work role, the more effective the individual will be in their job.
Beth – The term “contextualisation” often gives experienced trainer/assessors difficulty. As you say, training must be relevant to the qualification, and this is why we analyse units of competency and the AQF qualifications so carefully when designing or delivering training and assessment.
However, there are qualifications and units that can apply in different work contexts, and this is when we contextualise. For instance, I am just developing resources for the Utilities Sector. The accredited course unit is identical. However, there will be 3 sets of courseware and assessments – one for Telcos, one for Water utilities and one for Electricity utilities.
So contextualisation is modification of the training and assessment so that it relates to the actual context of work for the target group. At the same time, it still must meet all of the requirements of the unit of competency.
I think that contextualisation is making the learning meet the needs of the student with regards to making it relevant for the qualification that they are focusing on. It would make no sense to have someone change a tyre on a car, as part of training, if they were doing a nursing qualification. The best fit for the course and the outcomes for the job market.
I agree with both of you, Jordan and Glenise.
It is paramount for learners to have meaningful training and assessment so that it is relevant and not only meets the needs of the learner and the organization but also meets the standards of industry.
I enjoyed reading this Blog. I think that contextualisation is often misunderstood in the VET sector, so it was nice to read about the context of work. To meet industry needs the training and assessment must be contextualised. As trainers and assessors we need to ensure that we are sending our trainees out with the skills and knowledge required for them to be able to competently perform the job role.
Contextualisation is important to make the learning relevant to the learner. Sometimes, it can be as simple as changing a word, eg manager to supervisor.
It is important to spend time with the client to ensure that you cover the learning needs and establish an understanding of the organisations “language” When you do this you can easily make the changes that are necessary.